Australia’s recent fire season has been hellish, and there’s no end in sight. At least 17.9 million acres have burned, 28 people have died, and an estimated 1 billion animals have been lost.
But while Australia burns, East Africa has been grappling with record-breaking rainfall leading to catastrophic floods. Both have a common cause — and it lies in the Indian Ocean.
Watch the video above the learn how a large oceanic temperature gradient, the Indian Ocean Dipole, affects weather in East Africa and Australia. And how climate change could make this season’s disastrous weather the new norm.
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Want to help? Here are some organizations that are collecting donations that could use your support:
- The New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Country Fire Service Foundation, and Country Fire Authority
- The Australian Red Cross’s fire and recovery relief fund
- East Africa relief
A previous version of this video had the date January 7, 2019 at 0:11. It has been corrected to January 7, 2020. The source at 0:24 has been corrected to read the Government of Western Australia. The current version also corrects an error at 2:10 and 2:29 where our voiceover mixed up East and West.
